The Side of the Angels (24 page)

She gazed at me with that air of patient waiting that always made me wonder what the hell she was waiting for. It was that atmosphere about her of prolonged, entitled expectancy that made people want to rush in and fetch her whatever it was she wanted. I had seen it work on everyone here—except, perhaps, Kate.

I shrugged on the shearling jacket that no longer fit Kate's sister Caroline, feeling like a polar bear next to Suzanne in her size-two knit skirt and twinset.

Tony followed me to the door.

“Nicky,” he said. “I was drunk one night and did some talking. I didn't know she'd throw it in your face.”

“Then I guess you don't know much. She's obviously been waiting for the chance.”

“She's jealous. It's been hard for her.”

“Tell you what, Tony, you scamper on back and reassure her. Tell her you'd never carry a torch for someone as
pigheaded
and
judgmental
as I am.”

“Nicky, I'm sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I'm a vicious bitch who threw you out on your ear without a word of explanation, right? I deserve everything I get.”

Some part of me knew that I was being carried away by my own dramatics, but it was impossible to stop. Since I'd come here he'd insulted me and overworked me and, worst of all, ignored me whenever he could. In front of them all. In front of Suzanne. I was hurting him back at last—I could see how his whole face became set and shut, as if I'd aimed a blow at him—and it felt wonderful. It felt heavenly.

“If you would think for a minute, Nicky. When I … let my mouth run loose with Suzanne, I had no idea I would ever see you again. I had no idea she would ever meet you.”

“I don't
have
to think for a minute, Tony. I
pride
myself in never thinking. You know how I am. Impetuous. It's part of my charm.”

“Oh, Christ,” he said. “Don't go home this way. Let me … let me drive you to the airport. You can leave the rental car here for two days. I'll keep an eye on it.”

“No, thank you. I wouldn't dream of taking you away from your
work
.”

It wasn't a brilliant exit line, but it was enough to walk out on. In the parking lot I started to cry, but then I realized that if I began I would never stop. To be discovered by anyone—by Tony or Suzanne or Doug—sitting there weeping, wiping my snotty nose with the back of my glove and trying to rub mascara off my swollen face, would be simply too much humiliation for one day.

My last sight of them all through the strike office window, as I sat there snorting back sobs and defrosting the rear window, was of Margaret with an enormous box full of silver napkin rings, passing out polishing cloths. She handed one to Suzanne, who regarded it with puzzlement and walked away.

*      *      *

Logan was crowded with people who, like me, appeared as if they didn't especially want to go where they were going and wished the whole ordeal were over. Of course, I hadn't particularly wanted to stay in the place I'd just left, had I?

I bought an overpriced travel magazine at the newsstand and read it on the plane, sullenly drinking Bloody Marys and weighing the attractions of alligator watching in the Everglades versus an excursion to Macedonia for a firsthand experience of an archaeological dig.

In the taxi home from National Airport, the driver told me how he missed his family back in Ethiopa. I wondered why people who actually wanted to see their families were so often separated from them by chance or necessity, while those whose families exasperated and oppressed them were doomed to celebrate holiday after holiday in domestic discomfort.

My heart grew even heavier as I thought of all I was arriving without. I had no shower invitation design in hand for Betsey. I had no wherewithal to bake the two apple pies my mother had requested I bring the next day, so I'd have to run to the grocery, which would be no more pleasant than the airport was, on the night before Thanksgiving. I didn't even have a clean pair of tights in which to honor our Puritan forefathers.

Well, I could promise Ma a few sketches for the invitations by the end of the week. I could wash my tights in the sink and hang them over the radiator. And everyone, including my mother, would just have to settle for store-bought pies. They'd taste better than anything that ever came out of my oven, that was certain.

M
Y MOTHER DID
not see my point about the store-bought pies.

“You
bought
the dessert, Nicky?”

No hello, no “How is that exhausting assignment of yours going?”

No motherly hug (she was never big on those).

“Ma, I was lucky I made it to the store last night to get these.”

“These” were two very expensive apple pies and a cheesecake whose price amounted to highway robbery. Driven by an uneasy conscience, I'd skipped the local grocery and headed for one of those condescending gourmet shops that specialize in creating home-baked cooking for overworked professionals who are too pretentious or plagued by guilt to go to the bakery section of the supermarket. The gold cord with which this store's boxes were tied and the pale pink waxed paper that protected their delicacies from a cruel world should have told my mother that I'd made an extra effort—if not with my mixing bowls, at least with my wallet.

“We've never had store-bought desserts on a holiday.”

“Ma, I did not have the energy. These will taste just as good. Better.”

“They won't taste homemade.”

Joey grabbed the boxes from me and stuck his nose inside.

“You're right, Ma, they won't taste homemade. Nothing Nicky cooked ever smelled this good.”

But my mother wasn't to be cajoled by Joey, who can usually laugh her out of any wrongheaded notion or uncompromising mood.

“You can warm the pies up,” I told her. “They'll taste fine warmed up. Perfectly fine.”

She turned on her heel and walked into the kitchen, where
Johnny was leaning back on a chair drinking beer from the bottle and watching the football game on the tiny eight-inch black-and-white my mother kept in the kitchen so that should catch her soap opera even if cooking or cleaning.

“Stop tilting back, you'll get a skull fracture,” my mother snapped, and then put a coaster under his beer bottle, all without missing a beat in the stage business that was intended to convey her deep displeasure with me: slamming cabinet doors as she pulled out dishes, rattling the silverware around in the drawers, and glancing disdainfully at my outfit for the day, a cream satin blouse with a notched collar tucked into my favorite pair of pants, boot-cut trousers in a very expensive, supple brown suede given to me years ago by a client in the apparel industry. I knew I looked good in those pants. Market research had shown me that. And I knew they were classy, since my former client had never given a tasteless gift in her life.

“You couldn't put on a dress for once, for the holiday?”

“You're not wearing a dress, Ma. And you look great.”

I wasn't just buttering her up. A transformation had taken place. Always before for special occasions, she'd dressed in blouses a size too large in patterns too big for her small features, A-line skirts cut unflatteringly just below the knee, and the sort of “comfort” pumps that you knew would have a trademark name like “Flexi-Shoes,” indicating that no woman had ever been propositioned while wearing them.

But today Ma had come into her own. She was wearing a sage-green crinkled organza tunic top over tapered, narrow pants in the same material. The shade brought out the green of my mother's eyes, the clarity of her white skin. She looked confident, elegant. She looked … my God, my mother looked sexy. I hadn't seen her this way since the parties she used to go to with my dad back in Boston when I was three or four, wearing a black net cocktail dress that she still kept in a clothes bag in the back of her closet.

My mother had gone to the lengths of putting on earrings and a bracelet made of scrolly silver wire, and flat ballet slippers in a silvery velveteen. Someone—I was beginning to guess who—had helped her with her makeup. She'd brushed on one of those new face powders that gleam a little, which softened and brightened her face. Louise—I
was sure now it had been Louise—had also found a very sheer shell-pink blush for my mother's cheeks, collarbone, and temples. Louise had always had a nice hand with cosmetics. The question was, why had my cousin suddenly pushed the issue? God knew my mother had never listened to any hints on updating her style before.

“You look beautiful,” I said.

“Can't a woman get a new outfit once in a while without her whole family acting shocked?” said my mother.

“Not when she looks as great as you do,” said Johnny. My mother gave him a melting smile, then turned to me and unfurled more grievances from the mental list she carries with her titled “Ways in which my only daughter disappoints me.”

“Nicky, I asked you for one thing. One thing. To whip up a few apple pies.”

“Ma, stop harping. I can't work ninety hours a week and be Julia Child in my spare time. These are good, good pies. These are expensive pies.”

“You think money makes up for effort?”

“Money
is
effort, Ma. It's my effort at my job, transformed into apple pie. Transubstantiated, if you like to think of it that way.”

“Don't be profane,” said my mother in a cool, offended voice.

“Fine, Miss Lavinia Ann,” I said.

We'd once had a tabby cat named Lavinia Ann (my mother's idea of a classy name, taken from a book). She was a cat of great age and dignity who, if petted too clumsily or startled from sleep, would turn her head away and lift her nose in the air just as my mother was doing right now.

I couldn't see why Ma was so upset. I'd never been the culinary star of family gatherings. In fact, two winters ago when I attempted ginger cookies for Thanksgiving, my brothers and Johnny had used them as pucks for an impromptu game of hockey on the frozen creek in the woods behind my parents' house.

“How much did you pay for these?” said my mother.

“I'm not telling you,” I said.

“You'd better not. I think the price would make me sick. Who shops in these gourmet stores? Who pays that kind of money?”

At this point the kitchen door opened and Michael came in. He was wearing a deep blue fisherman's sweater and brown tweed trousers with loafers and argyle socks. He looked handsome and windblown. He was carrying two large apple pies with the juice bubbling out over the crust.

“I thought you might need extra desserts so I baked these this morning while the parade was on,” he said, giving my mother a kiss and lifting me in the air in an exuberant hug.

“Look, Ma, your problem's solved,” said Joey. “Nicky has no domestic skills, but Michael more than makes up for her.”

He seized the pies from Michael and ripped off an edge of the crust to stuff in his mouth.

“Don't be a pig, Joe,” said Michael. “You're such a godawful pig, you know that?” Michael made pig noises, grunting and oinking, and Johnny threw a roll at Joey, who continued to pretend to dig at the pie with his fingers.

“Joseph,” said my mother, and Joey subsided.

“Your mom's just nervous because she has a new boyfriend, Nicky,” said Johnny.

“A boyfriend!”

“Louise calls him her ‘beau,'” said Michael.

“You don't have to sound so surprised,” said Ma. “Louise knew a gentleman in her salsa class who has free evenings since he lost his wife, and she thought we might want to meet. So we had dinner at O'Donnells, and it was a very pleasant evening.”

“And you're seeing him again?” The last time I'd mentioned the possibility of dating to her, she'd implied I was spitting on my father's grave.

“Yes, I am. He was polite and attentive and a wonderful storyteller, and I haven't enjoyed myself so much in a long time.”

“Why shouldn't Ma get a little action?” said Joey, who'd balanced himself on my mother's cooking stool and was fishing sausage out of the huge pot of sauce she had simmering. Joey broke all the rules of my mother's house with impunity.

“Have some respect for your sainted mother,” said Michael in a phony brogue, and grabbed the fork out of Joey's hands. They began
singing a song Ma hated, “Mother McCree.” Ma always winced at the line about Mother McCree's brow being “all wrinkled and weathered with care.” Her own brow was smooth and unclouded, as befitted a woman who made her children's lives a misery with her nagging and thus slept every night with a sound and untroubled conscience.

“Louise has Aunt Maureen in her sights,” said Johnny. “Louise won't be happy until she marries off the entire Western world. Except for herself. She's too busy hanging around with rock singers.”

There was an unaccustomed sour note in his voice.

“Hub's not a rock singer, he's a poet of the people,” said Joey. “That's what Louise says. I asked her if they
elected
him poet, or what, and she got pissed at me.”

Joey and Louise disagreed on everything, but I think Louise actually found Joey soothing to be around. He saw through what he referred to as Louise's “Glinda the Good Witch routine.”

“Leave Louise alone,” said Michael. “She's not hurting anyone.”

“She's hurting herself,” said Johnny.

“I appreciate your concern,” said Louise, coming in unexpectedly from the hallway, as if we were all in a play and she'd been scripted to enter at a dramatically awkward moment.

Louise, like my mother, looked different from when I'd last seen her over lunch. Usually for these occasions she showed up disheveled and late, with flour in her hair. Today she had piled her hair on her head with a few curls drifting around her face and neck, and she wore a deep plum, Empire-waisted dress of thin wool with a low scoop neck, extremely becoming in its simplicity and rich color. Where was my hippie cousin with her gypsy garb and her tinker's jewelry? Where were Ma's sleeveless polyester mock turtlenecks printed with daisies? I left town for three weeks and look what happened.